Sunday Dispatch Megathread

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.607

The iron hand, it ain't no match for the iron rod
The strongest wall will crumble and fall to a mighty God

For all those who have eyes and all those who have ears
It is only he who can reduce me to tears
Don't you cry and don't you die and don't you burn
For like a thief in the night
He'll replace wrong with right
When he returns

Truth is an arrow
and the gate is narrow that it passes through
He unleashed his power at an unknown hour that no one knew

How long can I listen to the lies of prejudice?
How long can I stay drunk on fear out in the wilderness?
Can I cast it aside, all this loyalty and this pride?
Will I ever learn that there'll be no peace
That the war won't cease
Until he returns?

Surrender your crown on this blood-stained ground, take off your mask
He sees your deeds, he knows your needs even before you ask

How long can you falsify and deny what is real?
How long can you hate yourself for the weakness you conceal?

Of every earthly plan that be known to man
He is unconcerned

He's got plans of his own to set up his throne
When he returns


~from Slow Train Coming, Bob Dylan

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.608

Have some of you noticed that we are not yet perfect? (No great surprise, right?) And are you ready to make the accusation that since people like me, who go through Christ in order to get things right with God, aren’t perfectly virtuous, Christ must therefore be an accessory to sin? The accusation is frivolous. If I was “trying to be good,” I would be rebuilding the same old barn that I tore down. I would be acting as a charlatan.

What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn’t work. So I quit being a “law man” so that I could be God’s man. Christ’s life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not “mine,” but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I am not going to go back on that.

Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God’s grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily.

~Galatians 2:17-21 (The Message)

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.609

Welcome with open arms fellow believers who don’t see things the way you do. And don’t jump all over them every time they do or say something you don’t agree with—even when it seems that they are strong on opinions but weak in the faith department. Remember, they have their own history to deal with. Treat them gently.

For instance, a person who has been around for a while might well be convinced that he can eat anything on the table, while another, with a different background, might assume he should only be a vegetarian and eat accordingly. But since both are guests at Christ’s table, wouldn’t it be terribly rude if they fell to criticizing what the other ate or didn’t eat?

God, after all, invited them both to the table. Do you have any business crossing people off the guest list or interfering with God’s welcome? If there are corrections to be made or manners to be learned, God can handle that without your help.

Or, say, one person thinks that some days should be set aside as holy and another thinks that each day is pretty much like any other. There are good reasons either way. So, each person is free to follow the convictions of conscience.

What’s important in all this is that if you keep a holy day, keep it for God’s sake; if you eat meat, eat it to the glory of God and thank God for prime rib; if you’re a vegetarian, eat vegetables to the glory of God and thank God for broccoli. None of us are permitted to insist on our own way in these matters. It’s God we are answerable to—all the way from life to death and everything in between—not each other. That’s why Jesus lived and died and then lived again: so that he could be our Master across the entire range of life and death, and free us from the petty tyrannies of each other.

So where does that leave you when you criticize a brother? And where does that leave you when you condescend to a sister? I’d say it leaves you looking pretty silly—or worse. Eventually, we’re all going to end up kneeling side by side in the place of judgment, facing God. Your critical and condescending ways aren’t going to improve your position there one bit. Read it for yourself in Scripture:


“As I live and breathe,” God says,
“every knee will bow before me;
Every tongue will tell the honest truth
that I and only I am God.”

So tend to your knitting. You’ve got your hands full just taking care of your own life before God.


~Romans 14:1-12 (The Message)

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.610

Make sure you don’t take things for granted and go slack in working for the common good; share what you have with others. God takes particular pleasure in acts of worship—a different kind of “sacrifice”—that take place in the kitchen and workplace and on the streets.

~Hebrews 13:16 (The Message)

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.611

Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.

~Philippians 4:6-7 (The Message)

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.612


Earth's crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God: But only he who sees takes off his shoes.

~Elizabeth Barrett Browning

[the iron horse]

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People always got the image I was an anti-Christ or antireligion. I'm not. I'm a most religious fellow. I was brought up a Christian and I only now understand some of the things that Christ was saying in those parables.

~John Lennon-1980.

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.614


The little things? The little moments?
They aren't little.

~Jon Kubat Zinn

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.615


It's what you learn after you know it all that counts.

~A.C. Carlson

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.616


It is a mistake to look to the Bible to close a discussion; the Bible seeks to open one.

~William S. Coffin

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.617.


I choose to believe it. … I mean, there’s no downside to that. If you say, ‘Well, OK, I don’t believe in God, there’s no evidence of God,’ then you’re missing the stars in the sky and you’re missing the sunrises and sunsets and you’re missing the fact that bees pollinate all these crops and keep us alive and the way that everything seems to work together.

Everything is sort of built in a way that to me suggests intelligent design.

~from the Stephen King NPR Interview June 2013

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.618


Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?

Jesus replied: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
This is the first and greatest commandment.

And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.
All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.


~Matthew 22:36-40 (New Internation Version)

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.619


Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.

~Bruce Lee

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.620


The million little things that drop into your hands - the small opportunities each day brings He leaves us free to use or abuse and goes unchanging along His silent way.

~Helen Keller

[AEON]

Are you a bot?

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.621

I walked a mile with Pleasure;
She chatted all the way;
But left me none the wiser
For all she had to say.

I walked a mile with Sorrow,
And ne’er a word said she;
But, oh! The things I learned from her,
When sorrow walked with me.

~Robert Browning Hamilton

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.622

I'm gonna live forever
I'm gonna cross that river
I'm gonna catch tomorrow now

You fathers and you mothers
Be good to one another
Please try to raise your children right
Don't let the darkness take 'em
Don't make 'em feel forsaken
Just lead them safely to the light

When this old world is blown us under
And all the stars fall from the sky
Remember someone really loves you
We'll live forever, you and I

I'm gonna live forever
I'm gonna cross that river
I'm gonna catch tomorrow now

~Billy Joe Shaver

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.623


It is funny how mortals always picture us as putting things into their minds: in reality our best work is done by keeping things out.

~C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

[Bonoa]

Why do I keep reading "Sunday Dispatch Megadeth" everytime I log into this forum?

#Sorry #lovethatband!

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.624


I care more about what God knows than what man says.

~Dave Mustaine / a member of Megadeth